Blame
by Scrunchy
Summary: Six mercs locked in a never ending war against hordes of robots. Sometimes they get close, they get comfortable. Sometimes they lose people. Sometimes they blame themselves for lives lost. Sniper/Scout bromance.


It's been a while since I've really written anything appropriate... have some Sniper/Scout broship.

Inspired by a g-mod pic I saw on tumblr.

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He was used to it—losing people. That didn't make it any easier, no, but it could be compartmentalized, set aside so that he could do his job. He wasn't being paid to mourn the dead, after all.

When the robots hit, it had been worse. People went down every day instead of just a few a month, and replacements slowly filled their slots on the team as quickly as the Administrator could dole them out. It was a joke, a daily massacre that went on and on, and no matter how many men fell to the robots, how many arrows and bullets he put through their glowing eyes and steel craniums, there was always five more to take their places.

He hated it, but the money was fantastic, and he wasn't about to let some tin can do him in. It was a chore with interchangeable faces whirling around him.

It wasn't until he stood there after a raucous finale, blood singing, oil and scorch marks on his kukri and a wiry kid jumping on him like an old friend, that he realized they had had the same group of men for almost a month. He tentatively wrapped his arm around the Scout in an awkward return of the embrace before the young man raced off to leap onto the Heavy's shoulders and _demand_ to be carried 'round the field of victory.

He laughed when the Scout's ass hit the ground, and watched him collapse back, panting up at the sky and laughing, high on adrenaline, life, something the Medic might have given him—whatever it was, it made his lips turn up in a wry smile.

He walked over and held out his hand as the Engineer returned from the frontlines, having broken down and collected all of his scraps for the next week. Another force wasn't going to be coming for a few days at least, and they would have a pseudo weekend until Sunday morning. The Scout gripped his hand and hauled himself up from the ground, a wide grin splitting his face as he clapped him on the back and started walking back to the home base with him. They turned in their weapons together, checked for any new notices on the post-it board, and then walked down the hall lined with Saxxy Awards together.

During those few days, the Scout became to the Sniper, _just_ Scout. The Heavy and the Medic slowly turned into Heavy and Medic the next week, and a conversation over how he could possibly improve his scope's range of view turned the Engineer into "Engie." The Demoman was still strange, and he didn't necessarily feel close to the constantly unprofessional drunk, but he too, slowly, over another month of coming back battle after battle, and saving Sniper's ass countless times, became _just _Demoman.

He had a team again. He didn't have people running around the field being pointless, dumb idiots who would be replaced with possibly _more_ _pointless_ and _dumber_ idiots. He had people that he could count on to come back at the end of the day—people who watched his back just as he watched theirs.

It only made it harder when someone _was_ lost.

"Demo's down!" Shouldn't have cut through him like it did, and Sniper only took a moment to duck away and doff his hat like a proper gentleman for his lost comrade.

"Fucking shit!" Scout cursed over their mic system, and he heard the sickening hiss of a robot's head disconnected from its body before the feed cut off again.

"Keep your head in the game, mate." He reminded Scout, afraid that if he started getting emotional that he would do something stupid. He, himself, took a deep breath before ducking back out and tossing some Jarate into the front section of robots Heavy was tearing through.

"Yeah…" He could see Scout out in the fray, jumping like a lunatic and practically flying above the robot horde. "I know, I… yeah." He came down on the head of a Heavy and hit it viciously with the Fan o' War until it fell beneath him. His over-heal must have worn off, because he immediately chugged an Uber canteen and leaped up to distract the giant robot that came out of the cave next.

That night, as four of the battered mercs returned from their victory, none of them felt like they had won a thing.

Sniper had already turned in his rifle by the time that he realized there were only three other men with him. He glanced around, and his throat closed up when he realized that he didn't see Scout.

"Scout…" he hissed into the com system, his legs already taking him toward the door that lead back out to the metal-strewn battlefield. When there wasn't an answer, he cursed and took off running. The hand that Engineer rested on his shoulder, and the words that tried to console him were ignored. His long strides covered the distance quickly, and his eyes swept across the field, looking for a hint of red among the broken bits of grey and blue. It wasn't long until he was back in the cavern, and when he saw what was left of Demoman—pounded to a pulp beneath the uncaring feet of the robots—he took off his hat and averted his gaze to his boots.

"Now y'don't have an excuse, mate…" he whispered, and he sighed raggedly before putting his hat back on and looking around. Where had he last seen Scout?

He hiked back up the slope and around the boulders that he usually camped out on, walked through the tunnel carved into the rocks and stared at the wooden building in front of him. He tried again, "Scout…" he said hesitantly into his mic.

"Leave me alone." He heard the young man's voice. It was both on the small speaker in his ear, and right in front of him. He loped over and boosted himself into the low-set window, too happy with finding the boy to bother with walking around.

He was sitting with his knees bent, elbows resting on them, and a black, blood and dust soiled beanie dangling from his fingers.

"Scout…?" he asked when he saw the scrap of cloth.

"I told you to go away." The younger man sniffed and made a valiant effort to casually wipe sweat from his brow, though his sleeve was a little low, and actually swiped across his eyes by the end.

"No." Sniper plopped down next to Scout and stretched out his legs with a sigh. "I'm staying right here until you're ready to suck it up and… and walk back with me." He stretched forward and his back popped, ringing a sigh from him before he lay back on the wooden floor and tipped his hat forward.

Half an hour passed in silence, and Sniper patiently waited for the other to speak, move, do anything but sit there and stare at that round of fabric, stained with their friend's blood, oil from their enemies and the dust that was all around them.

"It's my fault." Scout finally said, and Sniper heard the slightly wet smack of the hat being tossed away. "It's… all because of me. If I hadn't been dicking around with the Sniper-bots…" Sniper shot up and turned to look at Scout. He was staring at the ground, his arms wrapped around his legs and his knees tucked under his chin.

"Scout," Sniper growled, narrowing his eyes at the other. He flinched, and withdrew further, no doubt assuming that Sniper was about to tear him a new one.

He was, but not until he could see his face.

His calloused hand reached over and grabbed the younger man firmly by the chin. He allowed himself to be turned, but his eyes stayed firmly on the hat on floor. His face looked on the verge of a breakdown, and his lip quivered just a bit.

"Bloody hell, _look at me_." He hissed, shaking the boy by the chin.

When his eyes slowly drug themselves away from the floor, Sniper caught them in an intense gaze and held them, unwilling to allow Scout to do this to himself.

"It's not your fault." He said, slowly, deliberately, desperately trying to get Scout to understand. This was a facet of what they did. They couldn't blame themselves for another person's death. He would have an unforgivable amount of blood on _his_ hands if he did that.

"You wouldn't know." Scout muttered, and he broke his eyes away again. "You weren't there."

Sniper took a deep breath and reached up to remove his sunglasses.

"Listen, little mate, I'm not going to tell you this again—It _wasn't_ your _fault_. You think that blighter ever left the base sober? Nah. He didn't. This was coming for him, because he didn't have the _guts_ to face it in his right mind." Sniper ducked his face closer to Scout's and made certain that the boy's eyes fell on him again.

"_You do_. You're stronger than him, faster than him, and a good deal smarter, too. Don't give me that, 'oh, it's my fault because I was fighting robots and not watching out for Demoman,' because that's not it. You look out for yourself first out there, and you have just as much of a goddamned bloody fucking _blast_ as you always do. Because when _you_ have fun killing robots, kid. You bloody well _massacre_ the oil-weeping sons of bitches."

Scout sniffed again, and Sniper fooled himself into thinking that there might have been a hint of a smile behind the sorrow written across his face.

"Listen, you can grieve back at the base, clean…" he finally relinquished his face and wiped some blood and mud—made from dust and sweat—from Scout's forehead with his thumb, "fed, and maybe with some booze and company." He smiled sadly when Scout's eyes snapped back up to him.

"Engineer busting out the good stuff?"

"Knob Creek—no Red Shed for us tonight." Sniper nodded and chuckled when Scout finally stood and held out his hand to help the older man up.

"Man, you should have started out with that."

"I'll keep it in mind next time." Sniper smirked and heaved himself to his feet with Scout's help.

"There isn't going to be one." The young man said resolutely as they began their trek back to the base.

"There's always going to be another, Scout." Sniper told him, resting a careful hand on his shoulder and stopping for a moment. "The trick is how you deal with it… and who you have to help you along the way."

Scout finally allowed a smile, a real one, to quirk his lips.

"I'd say I've got all I need, then." He said, punching Sniper's shoulder with a grin before grabbing his sleeve and tugging on him. "Now c'mon, let's go get shitfaced and talk about how much of a cunt Demo was."


End file.
